A writer and a tropical muse. A funky Lubavitcher who enjoys watching the weather, hurricanes, listening to music while enjoying life with a sense of humor and trying to make sense of it all!

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Rain, Wind, Snow -- April 2012

No, that's not today's rain storm but Hurricane Dennis from 2005. Keep reading, you'll understand why I posted it here now while I listen to the rain falling in April of 2012. Beautiful picture isn't it?

It's a very cold, rainy night where I am and yet despite the cold it's heaven listening to the rain falling, making sounds and rhythms which remind me of Busby Berkeley dance scenes and the sound of rain on a hot tin roof far away in Key West...

Know what's annoying? News programs that show a taped forecast for the Sunday shows that are poorly done with bad info. While watching the news it says the "rain will shortly be clearing out" yet the satellite imagery clearly shows rain all the way two states to the South that will be training in all night. I'm not sure how in a day and age when you can do a webcast on the iPhone or any computer device in real time....yet they still show Sunday Weather on most stations taped earlier in the day or worse the night before. Seriously....

An amazing storm system has taken hold of the Eastern half of the country and a beautiful low formed down in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday and dipped down, crossed Florida and swirled it's way north along the Northeast Coast dragging with it snow across most of Hurricane Country and sending large amounts of snow across parts of Pennsylvania, New England, New York in what is now a sequel to the Snowtober event back in October. Like bookends, an early winter system and a late winter system races across the land yet there wasn't much to write home about in between. Go figure.

The Weather Channel said last night this pattern is similar to 2005.

One of many articles about the quote by the NWS on this pattern being similar to the one in 2005.

Personally, I'm looking at the Atlantic today and surprised at what I see...

This image isn't 2005, nor is it 2006, it's today's image of the Atlantic. Oddly, there are storms over Africa and a very low ITCZ that is way too active for this time of the year. The frontal system sprawled across the Eastern Coast of the US is also visible.

That's a very active ITCZ for April.... even late April.

Very soon all the Weather Gurus will be posting their thoughts and guesstimates on how active this year will be.

My early guess is that this will be a tricky forecast and that we will have weather extremes throughout the first few months of the Hurricane Season. Late fronts that will either sweep through or go poof, regardless of how mild the winter was previously. Hot spells that are interspersed with cool air flowing. Frontal boundaries stretched down into the Gulf of Mexico could set up a pattern for hits along the panhandle of Florida and points to the West early in the season.

I keep picturing this last low and seeing images of Dennis. Something about this sudden low that formed, dipped and zoomed up reminded me of Dennis... maybe I'm just desperate for tropical weather but suddenly other years and other images came to mind..

And, then there was Arlene..............early storm that formed down in the Caribbean and worked it's way north. Remember, there was already a system down there a while back that freakishly got coverage for it's oddness and timing though nothing panned out... back in February.

Notice the pattern?

Notice the storms coming off of Columbia and the moisture being pulled north... this is very unscientific but hey... it's who I am and I am good at seeing patterns.

Watch the loop that shows the tropical moisture that came up from the deep Caribbean and got caught up in the low that formed in the Gulf and got scooped up fast and sent north packing. In another month or so such a system would linger longer.

Here's another thing I worry on.... the hail in Texas last week, crazy hail.... wild rainstorms.

1900 also had wild weather but they blamed it on a comet. No comet like that this year...

April 5–8, 1900: Rainstorm. This storm began in two centers, over Val Verde County on the Rio Grande, and over Swisher County on the High Plains, and converged in the vicinity of Travis County, causing disastrous floods in the Colorado, Brazos and Guadalupe rivers. McDonald Dam on the Colorado River at Austin crumbled suddenly. A wall of water swept through the city taking at least 23 lives. Damage was estimated at $1.25 million.

Sept. 8–9, 1900: Hurricane. Galveston. The Great Galveston Storm was the worst natural disaster in U.S. history in terms of human life. Loss of life at Galveston has been estimated at 6,000 to 8,000, but the exact number has never been determined. The island was completely inundated; not a single structure escaped damage. Most of the loss of life was due to drowning by storm tides that reached 15 feet or more. The anemometer blew away when the wind reached 100 mph at 6:15 p.m. on the 8th. Wind reached an estimated maximum velocity of 120 mph between 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. Property damage has been estimated at $30 million to $40 million.

Isaac Cline had to go and record the hail storm and flooding a few months prior to the hurricane season that claimed the lives of so many of the citizens of Galveston... it had been a strange and quirky year.

Got to be careful and respect the weather in strange quirky years. 2012 is one of such years.